


Uneasy  lies  the  head

by queenofroses12



Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Brotherly Love, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Haunting, Mental Instability, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21531934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofroses12/pseuds/queenofroses12
Summary: Henry  has  once  again  cast  aside  all  that  stood  between  him  and  his  desire. The  Boleyn  siblings  are  dead,  and  so  are  almost  all  their  supporters. The  sweet,  meek  Jane  Seymour  promises  a  lifetime  of  bliss  after  Anne's  fiery  passion. He  should  be  feeling  satisfied.  However,  it  seems  that  not  even  the  deepest  grave  can  hide  a  bad  death.  Anne  and  George  are  not  the  sort  who  would  leave  quietly,  in  life  or  in   death. A  look  at  Henry's  life  after  Anne's  death.
Kudos: 20





	Uneasy  lies  the  head

**Author's Note:**

> Taking a look at Henry the night after the Boleyns were executed. Will try to maintain some historical accuracy

“Her lips were moving” Henry murmured.

His voice was so low that even Norfolk, seated right next to him could barely catch it. It took the old courtier a moment to figure out what Henry was talking about.

“Your Majesty?”

The king glanced at him, eyes flashing with his now ever stormy temper.

“Anne”

Even now he spoke the name with an emphasis that bordered on awe, Norfolk noted, though of course Henry would never hear that.

“Did you not hear me, man? Her lips were moving. When the swordsman held her head up for the crowd to see…Her eyes were still open. She was looking towards the palace. And her dead lips spoke.”

Norfolk had to try hard not to groan.

  
Of course news was spreading, the eager watchers who came to see a queen die by the sword had certainly got enough for their trouble. The Boleyn siblings had always known perfectly well how to perform. Anne’s death had done what her life could not. Placed all the people of London firmly on her side. She was no longer the witch, the whore, the Night Crow. She was beautiful, brave Queen Anne, sent to die a martyr’s death by the man who swore eternal love and loyalty to her.

  
There had been no cheers when her brother and her accused lovers had died, though they had assured Henry there was. And when regal Anne emerged, head held high, eyes flashing, there were shouts and cheers- but all had been blessings called out to her, and one or two brave souls had even gone so far as to shout from the anonymity of the crowd that the king was no better than a murderer.

  
Not that anyone had dared mention this to Henry. But news spreads like wildfire, as any courtier knew. Henry knew full well what had gone down before Tower Green, though equally of course he would never admit he knew. He was quite talented when it came to selective perception. But apparently not so talented as to filter out the gruesome details of his queen’s end.

“I swear it was a curse that she spoke”

  
Damn it.

Norfolk knew just how superstitious his king could get, especially were the Boleyn Queen was concerned. He had pushed to have Anne brought to trial for witchcraft, claiming she had laid a spell upon him. Of course, Norfolk could get why he claimed that. After all, he had moved Heaven and Earth for her, and if as now it seemed, she turned out to be little better than a whore, what would that say of his judgement? Witchcraft was the perfect excuse for that. He was not at fault, he had only fallen prey to the machinations of the devil, and now God in his infinite wisdom had sent an angel, sweet Jane Seymour, to save him from the clutches of the accursed seductress. It made for a good narrative. Maybe one day Henry would even write a poem about it and present it to Jane.

  
But the problem was, it was not merely a narrative, not a pretty tale cooked up to cover the stench of his infatuation. Henry truly believed his wife to be a witch. Henry truly feared Anne Boleyn, his Dark Lady. That was the reason he had not yielded to poor Cranmer’s heartfelt pleas to spare Anne’s life. Most of the court had, till the last, believed Henry would show mercy. Sent Anne’s lovers and supporters to the scaffold, but sent the woman herself to a convent. After all, no queen of England had ever been executed before. Norfolk, as in most cases, knew better. Henry would kill her, not out of rage or jealousy as many supposed, but through fear, plain fear.

  
“Your Majesty “ Norfolk kept his voice low, not above a whisper, but he knew there were ears straining to catch the words, and atleast one or two of them would hear. Let them. “Sometimes beheaded people, they… twitch a little, it is merely the natural result of the soul leaving the body. I have seen it before in the battlefield. It seems to take them a moment or two to realize they are dead.”

Henry glared at him.

“Are you deaf, or are you stupid? She did not twitch, man. She spoke. Her last breath was spent whispering a curse. A dying curse.”

  
As was his wont, Henry was exaggerating. Norfolk had received reports himself, and apparently, the dead queen’s lips had been moving when the head was held up. But so what? No sound came. There were no lungs for the sound to come from. If her lips had formed words, they were merely the words of the prayer she had been reciting as the sword descended. Try convincing Henry of that.

  
He wished Cromwell was by. That snake had his uses, most important of which was to soothe Henry when he got like this. But Cromwell was busy dealing with the aftermath of the executions.(Apparently, it was a very complicated business to kill a queen. Who would have thought of that?) Norfolk did his best to smooth the ruffled feathers, but all he said seemed to only irritate Henry further, so he finally gave up.

  
………………..

  
Henry looked into the giant silver mirror before him. He did not entirely like what he saw. He could no longer convince himself that handsome prince Harry was the one who looked back at him. Handsome prince Harry had not had those frown wrinkles on his forehead, creases of fat that hung down like the jowls of a bitch. Most importantly, prince Harry had never stood heavily favoring one of his legs, the other wrapped up in stinking bandages.

“Anne” he whispered again.

  
She had taken his youth from him. He had been young when he wooed her, when she had bewitched him. Now…Jane had made him feel young, that was true, but she was not here now. Not in his bedchamber yet. He wouldnot let there be even a whisper of impropriety this time. There had been enough of that with the witch. A burst of laughter rang out. Feminine laughter, laughter of bold, unrestrained amusement. He had never heard another woman laugh like that. Laugh like her.  
The king whirled around, startling his attendants. “Your Majesty?” a young man who had replaced Francis Weston and whose name Hen

ry had not yet bothered to commit to memory asked nervously. Henry brushed him aside. He did not ask whether any of them had heard her. They had not, they would not. He knew that. In death, as she had never done in life, she would save herself for him.

“Leave me” he commanded curtly.

  
The candles had been extinguished, but the moon bathed the royal bedchamber in silver light. Light that could be moulded by the restless dead into fleshy garments for their souls. Henry wanted more than anything to simply close his eyes, but they would not be dismissed so easily. After all, when had anyone been able to make the Boleyn siblings give up? He should have known they would not leave quietly.

  
“I should have burned you at the stake” he whispered to Anne’s shade “That would have kept you in the grave”

“Don’t be so sure of that, Henry my sweet husband” she smiled. “After all, what grave can hold a sorceress?”

George Boleyn, leaning back carelessly on the window seat, laughed.

“I think you may have overplayed your hand, my most gracious king”

He sounded playful, carefree. Anne went to his side. They clasped hands. It seemed a reflexive gesture which neither of the pair seemed to need to think about.

  
“You could have gotten rid of me, you know” Anne mused. “I am not so stubborn as Catherine. How could I be? I had no kings to champion me as she did. Exile… As long as I had my brother and my little Elizabeth, I would have accepted it. You knew that well enough, Henry. You saw enough of my heart to know that. That was why you never offered it. You knew I would accept. You knew I would have fled from you had I been able, the moment I realized what you truly were. You knew, unlike poor Catherine, I could be happy without you. That I might even find happiness in another man’s arms. You could never bear that, could you? I was yours. And even if I ceased to interest you, I should never be another’s”

  
George met his king’s eyes with an insolent glare.

” And all of us… I can see why you wanted me dead, and I voice no complaint on that. After all, if you had killed Anne and left me alive, I would never have rested till I took your life or you took mine. But the others…Hal, Frank, Will…You had to break up the faction, hadn’t you? Y ou never believed the charges. In some ways you are a fool, Henry, but not that big a fool. A queen, lie with so many, that evidence… Why, you had them claim she lay with Weston on the night after Elizabeth was born, when she was torn and bleeding, near dead from what she had gone through to give you your precious heir. And then you had them claim she lay with me while you were on progress, when not even dawn pried you from her bed. Tell me, Henry, did we share a bed, all three of us together? ”

Anne laughed

  
” You should have heard them at the trial, Henry. They were laughing at the so called evidence. They know why you did this, my loyal husband. Your people know you sent away one innocent wife to die of neglect, die wanting money to pay for her shroud. And now they have seen you sent your second wife to die upon the scaffold, the scaffold wet with the blood of all those who stayed loyal to her. All because you couldn’t keep it in your pants. And Jane, the little milkweed, your dove…”

this time Anne’s laughter held a mixed tone of pity and anger.

“You shall not harm her, she-devil!” Henry shouted.

  
Both the Boleyns burst out laughing.

“How can you stop us, Henry? We are dead, we are beyond your soverign command” Anne moved nearer to his bed and laid a cold hand upon his bandaged leg. “You were wearing her favor that day, weren’t you? And she knelt outside the pavilion, knelt in the mud, praying for you to recover…How sweet.”

  
Now George was there too, the same ruthless yet magnetic smile on his face, the face near as anything identical to his sister’s. Out of nowhere, Henry remembered how, at a time that seemed centuries ago, he had drunkenly kissed George, believing he was Anne. How they all, even George, had laughed at that!

“You loved jousting, didn’t you?”

I did, I still do, be gone from me, damned shades!

  
Anne laid a hand on her brother’s arm, as if signaling it was time to go. Henry wondered whether the morning rooster had called, pulling the wandering dead into their graves. They turned to him once more, standing on either side of his bed and looking down upon him. The golden pair, bright even in death, alive. They were no misty phantoms, but stood before him as clear and solid as they had done before in flesh and blood. A stab of agony went through his leg, the edges of the jousting wound seeming to bite down on it.

  
”Be gone” he commanded, summoning up his imperious will. “Be gone, into the hellfire waiting for you”

The voice was a king’s but even he heard the slight tremor in it, to his eternal shame.

“Henry” this time he was not sure which of the pair was talking, or whether it was both speaking together, concurrently.” If there is hellfire waiting, to destroy or to purify, we will go into it with your own rotten soul as the prize of the chase, and not till then.”

  
Despite everything, he felt a cold shudder go through his body. A dying curse. The dying curse of a witch. Was George a witch too? Had he joined his sister in her diabolical rites as he seemed to do in everything else? The shades melted away into the moonlight, becoming mere shadows, before he could say a word more. But he caught the whispered words, a warning and a threat.

“Elizabeth is your heir”


End file.
